Growing Up Native American by Bill Adler Read Free Book Online

toward the railroad tracks. Momma and Dad were talking in the kitchen.
    â€œJust playing, Uncle,” Sister and I said simultaneously.
    Uncle Ralph grabbed both Sister and I by our hands and yanked us out the door. “ Awkuh !” he said, using the Pawnee expression to show his dissatisfaction.
    Outside, we sat on the cement porch. Uncle Ralph was quiet for a long time and neither Sister or I knew what to expect.
    â€œI want to tell you all a story,” he finally said. “Once, there were these two rats who ran around everywhere and got into everything all the time. Everything they were told not to do, well, they went right out and did. They’d get into one mess and then another. It seems that they never could learn.”
    At that point Uncle Ralph cleared his throat. He looked at me and said, “Sister, do you understand this story? Is it too hard for you? You’re older.”
    I nodded my head up and down and said, “I understand.”
    Then Uncle Ralph looked at Sister. He said to her, “Sister, do I need to go on with this story?”
    Sister shook her head from side to side. “Naw, Uncle Ralph,” she said.
    â€œSo you both know how this story ends?” he said gruffly. Sister and I bobbed our heads up and down again.
    We followed at his heels the rest of the day. When he tightened the loose hide on top of his drum, we watched him and held it in place as he laced the wet hide down. He got his drumsticks down from the top shelf of the closet and began to pound the drum slowly.
    â€œWhere you going, Uncle Ralph?” I asked. Sister and I knewthat when he took his drum out, he was always gone shortly after.
    â€œI have to be a drummer at some doings tomorrow,” he said.
    â€œYou a good singer, Uncle Ralph,” Sister said. “You know all them old songs.”
    â€œThe young people nowadays, it seems they don’t care bout nothing that’s old. They just want to go to the Moon.” He was drumming low as he spoke.
    â€œWe care, Uncle Ralph,” Sister said.
    â€œWhy?” Uncle Ralph asked in a hard challenging tone that he seldom used on us.
    Sister thought for a minute and then said, “I guess because you care so much, Uncle Ralph.”
    His eyes softened and he said, “I’ll sing you an Eruska song, a song for the warriors.”
    The song he sang was a war dance song. At first Sister and I listened attentively but then Sister began to dance the man’s dance. She had never danced before and she tried to imitate what she had seen. Her chubby body whirled and jumped the way she’d seen the men dance. Her head tilted from side to side the way the men moved theirs. I laughed aloud at her clumsy effort and Uncle Ralph laughed heartily too.
    Uncle Ralph went in and out of our lives after that. We heard that he sang at one place and then another, and people came to Momma to find him. They said that he was only one of a few who knew the old ways and the songs.
    When he came to visit us, he always brought something to eat. The Pawnee custom was that the man, the warrior, should bring food, preferably meat. Then whatever food was brought to the host was prepared and served to the man, the warrior, along with the host’s family. Many times Momma and I, or Sister and I, came home to an empty house to find a sack of food on the table. I or Momma cooked it for the next meal and Uncle Ralph showed up to eat.
    As Sister and I grew older, our fascination with the hobos decreased. Other things took our time, and Uncle Ralph did not appear as frequently as he did before.
    Once while I was home alone, I picked up Momma’s oldphoto album. Inside was a gray photo of Uncle Ralph in an army uniform. Behind him were tents on a flat terrain. Other photos showed other poses but in only one picture did he smile. All the photos were written over in black ink in Momma’s handwriting. “Ralphie in Korea,” the writing